Accountants touch every industry imaginable'and that includes the entertainment industry. So, we caught up with Kari-Anne Fraser, CPA, CGA, manager of accounting (television) at Corus Entertainment, to ask her about the industry, how to get involved in it, and why it's so much damn fun. Read on.

How did you get involved in the entertainment industry?

The legacy CGA program gave me the opportunity to work while I studied. I was able to apply what I learned to my day-to-day work. The entertainment industry is just a fun industry to work in. So it's not necessarily specific to the entertainment industry, but it [builds] your core knowledge of working in an accounting department.

How did you end up entering your field?

I enjoy companies that are fun and exciting. There's always something new, and it's fun that people easily recognize the names of the companies you're working with'entertainment ones especially. It's just a good base that you get. 

You need solid accounting skills to work in my department, you need the chance to move around and learn different pieces of it. As you're working through your designation there's also the opportunity to move into more senior positions and things like that. So it's not always about accounting; it's about your people skills as well, as you're trying to move up the ladder.

Can you tell us more about a day in the life of an accountant working in the entertainment industry?

It's always fun for me. Because we're talking about things that people can easily relate to. So in my position, I'm in the television side of things. Most people can relate to television, so you just name the network that you're working for, and people recognize it. 

So it's always fun here. There's always something going on. There are new things that are happening. We have new television channels launching, new brands, new programming and we have the marketing teams. For me, now that I'm in a more senior position, I get to talk with the different groups as well so you see a bigger picture of the things that are going on.

And how do you interact with the departments?

There's different levels of it. From a forecasting side, because we're always re-forecasting from a budget perspective at the start of the year and then looking at it, we have departmental meetings with the different department heads to see if they're still on budget. We meet with the sales teams to make sure their sales are on track and putting together financial statements for the senior management teams and things like that.

So there's all the little pieces that go together, and even though you're one little piece, in the big picture you still realize how much your piece effects everyone else and rolls into the big picture that maybe the president of the company sees.